She broke barriers during her esteemed career on the bench, but Judge Sheila Abdus-Salaam also struggled with depression and likely committed suicide this week — as her brother did three years ago, police sources said.

Abdus-Salaam, 65, (pictured) who was the first African-American woman on the state’s highest court, lost her brother and mother in recent years, both around Easter, according to sources.

Her brother was troubled over the death of his mom, and shot himself with a handgun, the sources said.

She was wearing a jogging suit and was carrying nothing but a MetroCard that she’d last used in a 42nd Street subway station on Monday, sources said.

The judge was last heard from at around 10 a.m. Tuesday, when she sent an e-mail and called her assistant at her Manhattan chambers to say she was sick and wouldn’t be able to make it in to work.

But Abdus-Salaam didn’t show up the next day either, prompting the assistant to alert the judge’s husband of nine months, the Rev. Gregory Jacobs, who immediately alerted authorities.
Abdus-Salaam was last seen leaving her office at around 7 p.m. on Monday, and detectives are still trying to determine her whereabouts on Tuesday, police said.

“We don’t believe she was in the water the whole time,” Chief of Detectives Robert Boyce said.

“We have a long way to go. We’ve spoken to many people in her family about her history.”

Police haven’t found a suicide note, but Abdus-Salaam had told a doctor she was stressed recently, law-enforcement sources said.

A spokesperson for the city Medical Examiner’s Office said a determination on the cause of death is “pending further studies following today’s examination.”